Ha, I knew that thread name would get your attention
Before you lynch me, hear me out...
Found in the Feb 1st 2008 Watchtower p4, (and previously commented on here:http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/154113/1.ashx )
is this startling piece of rhetoric:
"If we really are the product of evolution and there is no creator, the human race would in a sense, be an orphan. Mankind would have no source of superior wisdom to consult- no one to help us solve our problems. We would have to rely on human wisdom to avert environmental disaster, to solve political conflicts, and to guide us through our personal crises. Do these prospects bring you peace of mind? If not consider the alternative. Not only is it more appealing but it also makes more sense."
This paragraph is infuriating on several levels, but it just so
happens that the writers of the Watchtower stumbled upon a rather
apt metaphor. (even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut)
We ARE orphans.
This is expressed far better than I even could in the Sagan/Druyan
masterpiece Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
From the chapter "The Orphans File":
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We are cut off from our past, separated from our origins, not through some amnesia or lobotomy, but because of the
brevity of our lives and the immense, unfathomed vistas of time that separate us from our coming to be.
We humans are like a newborn baby left on a doorstep, with no note explaining who it is, where it came from, what
hereditary cargo of attributes and disabilities it might be carrying, or who its antecedents might be. We long to
see the orphan's file.
Repeatedly, in many cultures, we invented reassuring fantasies about our parents-about how much they loved us, about
how heroic and larger than life they were. As orphans do, we sometimes blamed ourselves for having been abandoned. It
must have been our fault. We were too sinful, perhaps, or morally incorrigible. Insecure, we clung to these stories,
imposing the strictest penalties on any who dared to doubt them. It was better than nothing, better than admitting our
ignorance of our own origins, better than acknowledging that we had been left naked and helpless, a foundling on a
doorstep.
As the infant is said to feel it is the center of its Universe, so we were once sure, not just of our central position,
but that the Universe was made for us. This old, comfortable conceit, this safe view of the world has been crumbling for
five centuries. The more we understood of how the world is put together, the less we needed to invoke a God or gods,
and the more remote in time and causality any divine intervention had to be. The cost of coming of age is giving up the
security blanket. Adolescence is a roller coaster ride.
When, beginning in 1859, our very origins, it was suggested, could be understood by a natural, unmystical process - requiring
no God or gods - our aching sense of isolation became nearly complete. In the words of the anthropologist Robert Redfield, the
Universe began to "lose its moral character" and became "indifferent, a system uncaring of man."
Moreover, without a God or gods and the attendant threat of divine punishment, will not humans be as beasts? Dostoyevsky warned
that those who reject religion, however well-intentioned they may be, "will end by drenching the earth with blood." Others have
noted that drenching has been in progress since the dawn of civilization—and often in the name of religion.
The distasteful prospect of an indifferent Universe—or worse, a meaningless Universe—has generated fear, denial, ennui, and
the sense that science is an instrument of alienation. The cold truths of our scientific age are uncongenial to many. We feel
stranded and alone. We crave a purpose to give meaning to our existence. We do not want to hear that the world was not made
for us. We are unimpressed with moral codes contrived by mere mortals, we want one handed down from on high. We are reluctant
to acknowledge our relatives. They are strangers to us still. We feel ashamed: After imagining our Antecedent as King of the
Universe, we are now asked to accept that we come from the lowest of the low—mud, and slime, and mindless beings too small to
be seen with the naked eye.
Why concentrate on the past? Why upset ourselves with painful analogies between humans and beasts? Why not simply look to the
future? These questions have an answer. If we do not know what we're capable of—and not just a few celebrity saints and notorious
war criminals—then we do not know what to watch out for, which human propensities to encourage, and which to guard against.
Then we haven't a clue about which proposed courses of human action are realistic, and which are impractical and dangerous
sentimentality The philosopher Mary Midgley writes,
Knowing that I have a naturally bad temper does not make me lose it. On the contrary, it should help me to keep it? by forcing
me to distinguish my normal peevishness from moral indignation. My freedom, therefore, does not seem to be particularly threatened
by the admission, nor by any light cast on the meaning of my bad temper by comparison with animals.
The study of the history of life, the evolutionary process, and the nature of the other beings who ride this planet with us has
begun to cast a little light on those past links in the chain. We have not met our forgotten ancestors, but we begin to sense their
presence in the dark. We recognize their shadows here and there. They were once as real as we are. We would not be here if not for
them. Our natures and theirs are indissolubly linked despite the aeons that may separate us. The key to who we are is waiting in
those shadows.
When we began this search into our origins, using the methods and findings of science, it was almost with a sense of dread. We were
afraid of what we might find. We found instead not just room but reason for hope, as we begin to explain in this book.
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Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's words speak for themselves.
I am three chapters in, and I highly recommend the book.
[inkling]